


Mind Over Matter

by dollseyes



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: I curse, M/M, caleb is in his class, oliver is a chem professor, that was the premise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:42:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23389711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollseyes/pseuds/dollseyes
Summary: Caleb Michaels does not think he should have to take chemistry. The university says otherwise. He does not think he should have to interact with his chemistry professor more than is strictly necessary for him to pass the class. The universe says otherwise.
Relationships: Adam Hayes/Caleb Michaels(former), Mark Bryant/Oliver Ritz
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	Mind Over Matter

Caleb pulls his notebook and pencil out of his bag before kicking it under his seat. The seats are the kind of textured plastic auditorium style bullshit that are in half the classrooms around campus. Caleb has a class schedule right before this which means he’s late so he’s had to sit further towards the front than he would prefer. Especially for this class. He has no interest in chemistry, least of all Chem 1 which he expects to be basically exactly like the AP Chem class he was forced to take in high school. At least he had Adam to help him out for that. But no, best not to think about that.

Instead he glances at the name again, Professor Ritz and it sounds vaguely familiar. Like the cracker. Or, Caleb supposes, like the snazzy hotel chain. Could definitely go either way. But then the man himself walks in, begins setting up his laptop and connecting it to the projector.

Definitely the cracker.

The man is pale and thin and looks like he would break if you applied any pressure to him. His glasses are too big and sit oddly on his angular face. Caleb knows he’s new. This is his first time teaching, at least at a university level. A LinkedIn account registered to O. Ritz says he worked at some government facility a couple of years ago, but nothing much since.

Caleb looks at him and debates the possibility he’s spent the past couple years locked in a basement performing secret experiments for a shady government organization. He certainly has not seen the sun in a very long time.

The man fumbles while clipping the transmitter for the microphone on and the little padded reciever hits the desk, sending an echo of the impact through the whole auditorium. The man frowns and fixes it back on his collar.

“Can everybody hear me?”

Professor Ritz waits a moment, looking around the room.

“I’ll take that as a yes. As you already know because I posted the syllabus for this class a week ago, my name is Doctor Ritz. It’s a simple enough name, just the one syllable. Doctor Ritz. No Doctor R, or Doc, or Ritz or any of that. Doctor Ritz.”

Caleb wants to groan. So it’s going to be like  _ that _ .

“Wonderful, any other questions you have should be answered on the syllabus and if they aren’t, please reach out to your TA about class content, they should be able to help you out if need be. Also if you are not signed up for the lab portion of this class, you are missing vital hands on learning.”

A girl in the front raised her hand and Caleb didn’t need to be an empath to feel Doctor Ritz’s annoyance.

“Yes, what is it?”

“Is the textbook required for this class?”

Doctor Ritz pursed his lips into a tight frown.

“Does that seem like information that should be in the syllabus?”

“Yes, but-”

“Good, then it should be easy enough for you to answer.”

There were no questions after that. No one dared.

Caleb recognizes that going home after his first day of classes gets off to a poor start is a childish move. Instead he goes to Mark’s new apartment. Mark had recently moved in with his boyfriend, into an apartment which happened to live closer to BU’s campus. Something about it being closer to work. Must be the boyfriend’s work because Caleb wasn’t actually sure that Mark went to a physical place to do his work, with all that he waxed poetic about being able to find beauty anywhere or whatever.

Caleb picked up beer on the way as a sort of house warming gift and because he had a shit day. When he texted Mark about it, Mark asked him to get a couple IPAs and some dark beer, which Caleb knows Mark can't stand. So Caleb does one of the build your own six pack and picks up two stouts, a couple Blue Moons for himself, and two of the least offensive looking pale ales. 

Mark swings open the door and greets him with a relieved grin as he takes the beer and ushers Caleb in.

“Love what you’ve done with the place.”

“It’s a work in progress. We’ve been busy.”

There are cardboard boxes strewn all over the place like some giant obstacle course.

“Oliver isn’t back yet and I didn’t want to mess up whatever system he has going on with his boxes. At least the cable is set up. I think we have...sports.”

Caleb laughs. “Sports?”

“Shut up.”

“How long have we known each other?”

“Let’s not talk about that, it’ll just make me feel old. Older than the knowledge that you can now buy your own beer.”

Mark tosses Caleb the remotes for the television and cable box and goes into the kitchen to find glasses. For all the things he hasn’t unpacked, he does have glasses sitting in his freezer, just waiting for beer to pour into them.

He hands Caleb his and takes a seat on the couch beside him, propping his feet up on a box labelled ‘glassware-fragile’.

The noise from the tv is too loud for the over-enthusiastic voices of the sports commentators and Caleb turns it down to a more reasonable volume, one which they can have a conversation over.

“So...Oliver?”

Mark grins and shrugs.

“Oliver.”

Caleb pauses, waiting for more, but he can tell that despite the pit of deep satisfaction and excitement when Mark says his name, he wants to be prodded.

“Come on Mark. I’m not asking for much. Well, I am, actually, any details. I need to live vicariously through someone’s love life.”

“Well you could-”

“No, no, no. Oliver.”

Mark rolls his eyes, but can’t seem to slip the grin from his face.

“He’s good.”

This time, Caleb waits, because he can feel Mark’s need to spill his guts.

“So we’ve been together for-” he tilts his head, eyes pointed towards the popcorn ceiling as he counts, “three years now. But after you know, everything, we thought it might be best if we lived in our own places for a while to try and figure out who we were on our own. But now?”

Mark shrugs with a small smile on his place and gestures to the room around him.

“We decided we were ready for all this. Domesticity.”

“What do you mean, after everything?”

“After the whole, AM thing.”

“Oh. So he’s-”

Caleb doesn’t really want to finish the sentence.

“Yeah, he’s atypical.”

“What can he do?”

“Well he does do this one thing with his tongue-”

Caleb kicks him and Mark laughs, doubling over and nearly spilling the last half of his beer all over the floor.

“You’re such an ass. What is his atypical ability?”

“Transmutation.”

“So like turning straw into gold or whatever?”

Mark groans.

“God don’t let him hear you say that. It’ll start a whole thing and I really don’t need to hear all that again.”

“Okay, I won’t, I won’t.”

“Okay though, enough about me. You walked in here upset about something.”

“Yeah,” Caleb sighs. The annoyance is faded now, washed away with some beer and good company that doesn’t make him want to tear his hair out of his skull.

“It’s just that the university decided not to take my AP Chem credits from high school, which meant I had to take another gen ed for a physical science and so I got stuck taking Intro to Chem, which fucking sucks because I’ve already done it and yeah I wasn’t that great at it, but at least I had Adam to help me out and now I just-ugh I don’t know. I can just tell this is going to suck. The professor has a stick so far up his ass that he has a second spine.”

“Sounds like senior year is going to be a joy then?”

Caleb rolls his eyes.

“Hey, at least it can’t be as bad as mine. I did nearly set a building on fire.”

“I thought you did set it on fire.”

“Details, details. Anyways, you should ask Oliver for help. He knows a bit of chemistry. Or at least he should.”

With that, they hear the sound of keys in the door and Caleb turns to get his first glimpse of Mark’s boyfriend of apparently three years.

_ Fuck. _

The name earlier that day had definitely been familiar. Oliver Ritz. Doctor Oliver Ritz. The same one who sent out an email not half an hour ago that only contained the information about the add/drop date deadline.

Mark got up to greet him and Doctor Ritz--Oliver’s lips barely tilted up into a smile as he leaned in for a kiss.

“Long day at work.” Mark doesn’t ask it, doesn’t need to. Just like Caleb doesn’t need to ask to know that Ritz is a little annoyed at having unexpected company.

“Right, this is Caleb, but it seems like you guys have already met.”

Ritz frowned. “I don’t think so.”

“No, we haven’t,” Caleb says, shooting Mark a look.

“I’m Caleb. Mark’s friend.”

“Yes the empath. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Caleb brought beer. There’s two in the fridge for you.”

Oliver nods and disappears into the kitchen.

Mark stares at him.

“What the fuck is up with you?”

“That’s my chem professor. The one I was telling you about.”

Mark just laughs.

Caleb is late again to Chem because he still has a class right before. But it seems like everyone else decided to be early to day because all the open seats are near the front of the room. Like fucking Sea World in winter, no one wants to be in the splash zone.

Damn it.

Caleb drops his bag and pulls out his notebook and ignores it when he feels Doctor Ritz walk by him. Luckily he doesn’t notice Caleb, not at first. It’s not until he’s gotten himself hooked up in the front of the room that he glances up at the class. Caleb can feel the moment he realizes and freezes. He’s not sure what he should do. Look up? Make eye contact? Wave?

He does none of those things. Instead, he slips further into his seat and tries to draw all attention away from himself.

The rest of class is...not good. The girl behind Caleb, the one who asked the question on the first day, is still a little peeved about being told off in front of the entire class, and she’s letting that resentment fester.

Which means Caleb gets a good slurry of emotions that are not conducive to actually paying attention. And fuck it all, Ritz notices. And then he’s annoyed. Which doesn’t bode well for anything.

The next Monday, Caleb receives a text from Mark.

**\--u up for the great american pastime tonight?**

**the great american pastime is baseball--**

**\--what. That makes no sense.**

**I mean baseball is older--**

**\--whatever. Still you up?**

Caleb sighs. He really doesn’t want to have to see Doctor Ritz after class again. Especially not after another day when he couldn’t pay a lick of attention for the entire hour and a half lecture.

**You don’t even like football--**

**\--no but you said you would teach me about it. I am eager to learn.**

**We’ve been doing this for three years and you don’t even know what a down is.--**

**\--It’s when you get to the end of the field and score points.**

**That’s a touchdown...--**

**\--What’s the difference?**

**:\\--**

**\--Come on, Caleb. It doesn’t matter if I like football. You like football. And this is our thing.**

Caleb feels guilty. Because he normally hangs out with Mark at least three times a week, but he hadn’t wanted to go back to the apartment after last week. And he likes hanging out with Mark, and he shouldn’t let the fact that Mark’s new boyfriend is Caleb’s professor get between them.

**I’ll be there.--**

**\--grab beer?**

**Fine…--**

**\--and IPA?**

Caleb sighs.

**Yeah, sure--**

**\--cool beans. I’ll grab snacks**

Caleb shows up to the apartment and Mark has not yet returned. Which means Doctor Ritz opens the door for him. He’s dressed in the same outfit he wore to class that day, brown slacks and a button down, except he’s lost the tie and the top couple of buttons are undone.

He’s less stressed than he was earlier that day, but to be fair, whoever was in the room the night before had neglected to plug in the wireless mic and he had to use the wired one, which only had a three foot cord which left him trapped against the wall, unable to move around. He had spent the entire lesson uncomfortable.

“Ah, Caleb.”

“Hey, Doctor Ritz.”

The man frowns at that.

“Hmm, I don’t think I want to hear that in my own home. Perhaps, Oliver would be better.”

“How about Ritz?”

He considers it and then nods.

“That will suffice.”

Caleb shuffles past him into the kitchen, only to have Ritz follow him there, obviously with something on his mind.

“I saw that you applied for special accommodation. And that your request was denied.”

Caleb shrugs and opens up one of the upper shelves.

“Yeah, that happens every year. Honestly I should probably give up on it, but if there’s a chance, then I feel like I should take it.”

The shelf doesn’t have what he’s looking for.

“Mark said you had trouble focusing when you are in large classes. That the noise from everyone else’s emotions gets overwhelming.”

Caleb opens up the next one.

“Yeah. I normally manage fine though. And most of my classes are upper levels this year, so there’s not as many students. It’s really just chem.”

Also not what he needs, and he closes it.

“Would it help if I recorded the lectures for you? So you could listen to them when you have the space to focus?”

Caleb looks at Ritz, standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

“I-yeah, it really would. If it’s not too much trouble.”

“It should be fine. The school provides ones that attach to the microphones, so if I can convince whoever leaves it off the charger at night to be a respectable human being, we should be fine.”

Caleb lets himself chuckle and Oliver gives him a small smile.

“Honey, I’m home!” Mark’s sing-songy voice calls from the entrance to the apartment.

“In the kitchen,” Ritz calls back.

Mark appears and presses a kiss to his boyfriend’s cheek and raises two paper bags.

“I come bearing gifts.”

He drops them on the ground and begins to unload.

“Chips and salsa for Caleb,” he says, handing them over.

“Hint of lime?”

“Of course, who do you take me for?” Mark asks, pretending offense.

“Scoops and queso for me,” he sets them on the counter and Caleb reaches into a shelf he had already opened to grab from the stack of bowls there.

“And weird green pea crisps for the weirdo.”

“If they’re so weird where did my other bag go?” Ritz asked, snatching the bag from Mark’s hand.

“Um, the dog ate them.”

Ritz rolled his eyes.

“We don’t have a dog.”

“We should rectify that situation.”

“As soon as you can learn to tell when pasta is ready without throwing a noodle against the wall, I will reconsider.”

“Challenge accepted.”

With snacks situated and beers in hand, the three make their way back into the living room. Caleb kind of expects Ritz to disappear somewhere, but he makes himself comfortable on the other side of Mark and lets Mark wrap an arm around his shoulder.

“Who’s playing today?”

Caleb grabs the remote and starts to look for the info guide, but Ritz answers before he can get to it.

“Patriots and the Jets.”

Mark glances at him.

“How did you know that? You said you’ve never watched a game.”

“Yes, but I always do my research.”

The rest of the night ends up being a lot of fun. Ritz has actually put effort into researching how the game is played and he and Caleb take turns ribbing Mark for his lack of knowledge. It’s been a long time since Caleb felt comfortable like this with people who weren’t his family or --. With people who weren’t his family.

Everything is a little new and a little weird about the situation, but Caleb finds he falls into habits fairly quickly. He goes to his classes, goes to the gym, listens to the recordings before he goes and watches football with Mark and Oliver on Monday nights. Sometimes if Caleb has questions about it, he’ll ask Oliver, or he’ll ask him to expand on an example they didn’t have time for in class.

Caleb doesn’t like chem. Not really. But it’s obvious that Oliver gets excited when Caleb shows interest or demonstrates that he understands the lecture material. 

One day, Caleb brings his notes from AP Chem for Oliver to see. He had mentioned being interested in what half of the students were supposed to already know before they came to class.

“Are you sure that these are  _ your _ notes? Only half of this is in your handwriting.”

Caleb glances away from his lab report to look at the tattered notebook.

“Oh, yeah. That’s, um, that’s my ex’s handwriting. He took notes for me, sometimes, when things got overwhelming.”

Oliver hums and goes back to staring at the notes. Caleb finds Mark watching him from across the table, concern pushing out from him towards Caleb. Caleb tries to push back his own message.  _ I’m fine _ . Mark frowns and seems unconvinced, but goes back to editing on his computer. 

That night, Caleb opens Instagram and scrolls through pictures of New Haven and libraries and recording studios.

Caleb takes the final exam for chem in Oliver’s office, under the supervision of one of the TAs for the class, the one who led his lab section. She’s not paying much attention to him, just studying for her own final. Oliver had asked her to do it because he knew once she got started on something, she remained very focused on her work.

Caleb also knows that Oliver is planning on asking her to join his research study for the coming semester. He had applied for a grant to study something that went way over Caleb’s head, and the news had come in the week before he received it. Which he is ecstatic about because it means that the university is no longer going to require him to teach introductory level courses in the upcoming semester, so that he can have time to focus on his work.

So since Caleb isn’t distracted by the TA while he took the test, he only had himself to blame for the distraction. Because some part of the situation reminds him of evenings spent studying after football practice. The way that she focuses is similar to how his study partner focused. Single-minded and completely engaged in whatever she is reading.

The only reason Caleb is certain he answered every question in a mostly competent fashion is that he has spent so long focusing on getting this right. Because at this point, he would be disappointing one of his favorite teachers.

He sets it in front of her, and she blinks up at him and then nods and he slings his backpack over his shoulder and heads out.

It’s definitely not a situation Caleb should be in with his former professor and his former therapist’s brother, but classes are done now, grades are in and honestly it wasn’t all that professional of a relationship to begin with, so he’s here. At a bar with both of them. Oliver is the most sober of the three, despite having had quite a few more drinks. But Mark and Caleb are feeding off of each other and the single drink in each of their stomachs.

“Okay, so you can transmutilate things or whatever right?” Caleb asks, waving his finger at Oliver.

Oliver nods unevenly. “Transmutate.”

“Whatever. Turning straw into gold.”

“Noooo,” Mark groans, shoving a hand over Caleb’s mouth.

“I can only turn straw into gold if all the requisite elements are-”

“Doesn’t matter,” Caleb says, waving his hand and cutting him off. “But at your old job, you used to like do reactions and stuff-”

“Reactions and stuff? Caleb you took my exam last week.”

“Shhhh. Just the question.”

“Yes, I used to do ‘reactions and stuff’.” Oliver uses his fingers to do air quotes.

“Did you use your power?”

“Yeah, it was what made me the best. Not that I’m not the best without them but -”

This time Mark shushes him with a finger pressed clumsily to his lips. “Yes you are the best.”

Mark replaces his finger with his own lips for a moment and Caleb groans.

“Groosss!”

Mark pulls back and Oliver looks a little dazed but returns his attention to Caleb when he speaks.

“So isn’t that basically cheating?”

“Cheating?”

“Yeah. Like when athletes dope or whatever to get an advantage.”

“But I’m not using dope, I’m just using what I can do so that I can do my job better. It’s like-it’s like would you say that Usain Bolt is cheating when he runs faster than anyone else? No. He can just do things most people can’t.”

Caleb frowns.

“I still think it’s cheating.”

Oliver tilts his head to the side, his obvious thinking pose. He stays there for a moment until he straightens back out.

“Okay Caleb-what is it you want to do for your?”

“I want to be a therapist.”

“And you’re an empath, right?”

Caleb can’t see the connection.

“Yeah, you know I’m an empath what does that-”

“Then doesn’t it count as cheating if you can read your patients emotions?”

Caleb ponders this for a moment and frowns at his empty glass.

“This isn’t fair. You’re less drunk and smarter than me. It’s like if I had to argue with-” he cuts himself off.

Mark looks at them both.

“I want ice cream,” he announces, and then presses his hand into Oliver’s chest. “Buy me ice cream.”

Oliver shakes him off.

“It’s almost midnight.”

“Yeah, but we were celebrating. Caleb didn’t fail and you don’t have to teach intro next year. I want to celebrate me getting ice cream.”

Oliver frowns, but Mark is persistent.

“Come on, you’ve got to be rolling in those research funds baby.”

“The grant is not in place to buy you ice cream.”

“Sure it is.”

“Ice cream sounds really good,” Caleb adds, once again invested in the conversation.

Mark gets a waffle cone with a scoop of an absurdly bright green mint chip and Oliver ends up with rum raisin. Away from the bar, Mark and Caleb are now sober enough to mock him for it, but he simply raises his chin and pointedly looks at the gummy worms on top of Caleb’s cookie dough ice cream.

Caleb finishes faster than both of them because he is used to having to fend off Alice, who Caleb believes is part snake judging by the way she can dislocate her jaw and eat entire scoops of ice cream at once. He’s sitting there, listening to them chat when his phone rings in his pocket.

His heart stops for a moment, but he’s picking it up as quickly as he can and starts to put space between himself and the others to clear his head.

“Hey,” he says to the silent phone.

“Hey,” it answers.

“Are you okay? Is something wrong?”

“I-yeah. I’m okay. Yeah. I-yes. Thank you for asking.”

“Okay,” Caleb says, letting his heart start up again.

“How-how are you?”

“I’m good. I’m out right now but-”

“Oh god, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have called so late I thought you would be in bed but of course you’re not, you’re out and I’m keeping you from whoever you’re with I should just- I should go-”

“Wait!” Caleb says, practically shouting it. “Wait, don’t-don’t go.”

The other side of the line is silent for so long he almost checks to see if the call has ended. If he’s just listening to an empty line.

“Okay.”

Caleb smiles.

“Don’t worry you’re not interrupting anything, I’m just out with Mark and his boyfriend.” He pauses for a moment. “Why did you call?”

The reply is muffled and Caleb can’t quite make out any words.

“What did you say?”

“I said I miss you.”

Caleb catches his breath.

“I miss you too.”

“I-I’m coming home tomorrow morning, back to Boston. For the break. I thought-I was thinking-I hoped that maybe-”

“Do you want to hang out?” Caleb asks, cutting him off.

“ _ Yes _ .”

“We could go do Thai for dinner, there’s this new place near campus, I’ve been to it a couple times. It’s really good.”

“I-yeah that sounds really good.”

“Then it’s a date?”

The pause makes Caleb’s heart pound in his chest.

“Yeah, it’s a date.”

“Great. I want to hear all about your radio show and the classes you took these last couple semesters.”

“Yeah? I-I wanna hear about what you’ve been up to too. And the others. Oh I saw you were reading Harry Potter again did you think about my theory?”

Caleb laughs and toes his shoe into the ground.

“We can talk about this tomorrow.”

“Right, yeah. Tomorrow.”

“See you then, dork.”

“You too, meathead.”


End file.
